Dainty Crimes
After a full-scale invasion, as well as downloadable content (DLC) that had players plumb the depths of Hell, it seemed that there was nowhere else the Third Street Saints could go. So, instead of trying to outdo what was done in the past, Volition instead chose to do a soft reboot of the franchise. They tossed out the old and stacked their main cast with those riding the thin line between Millennial and Gen Z. Throw in a few lines about the difficulty of making ends meet, the power of friendship, sprinkle it with copious amounts of murder and...voila! a brand spanking new game simply titled Saints Row is yours!
The game starts off at the peak of the Saints success. The gang have all gathered at their headquarters and they’re throwing a party to celebrate their growing enterprise in Santo Ileso - the fictional equivalent of what felt to me was Las Vegas. With their enemies defeated, they are finally enjoying what it means to rest on their laurels.
Until, of course, it all goes wrong and the player character: known as Boss, is attacked and is last seen trying to crawl their way out of a shallow grave before the scene shifts. Suddenly, the Boss is just another lowly grunt from Marshall, sent out on a mission to capture the Nahualli on their first day on the job. When things don’t go quite as planned and the Boss exercises some creative initiative to bring the super criminal down, they’re cautioned by their commanding officer.
What follows is a series of initial missions that flesh out the Boss relationships with their flatmates and a build-up to the gang’s sudden pivot into proper crime.
Unemployed and without any further options, the Boss and their motley crew of an art major mechanic, businessman and shirtless pansexual chef begin the their journey of climbing up the criminal ranks, all the while sticking it to the corporate man.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with the set-up. In fact, I felt myself drawn to Kevin, Eli and Neenah. They all had their own unique interests and had some interesting backstories that were explored in their own missions. Even the Boss was flavoured with their love for knives. Picking the British voice (Voice Number 6) also helped give some additional character to the murder machine that I was controlling.
I can’t say for sure what the other voices might have prompted in reply to Neenah’s dismissal of marmite, but I’m sure there would have a suitable soundbite for others to enjoy. And I mean, can you blame a girl for going with the British option after just coming down from Xenoblade Chronicles 3?
And yet, despite all that, I still felt the story was somewhat underbaked and the stakes low. Just when the game might have been going places, it ended. True, I did enjoy the secret ending of the Boss and the gang singing Love Shack, but the encounter with the Nahualli just ended so quickly (along with the other troubles the Saints might have faced against the other rivals). And you’re telling me that was it? One proper boss battle in the entirety of the game? Why not escalate? Why not pad out some of the interactions with the Nahualli?
Truth be told, the Nahualli’s betrayal didn’t sting as much as it would have. There hadn’t been much build-up and there hadn’t been enough quests for me to get to know them beyond his lone wolf shtick.
Why did he feel the need to steal the Boss’s friends? Why couldn’t they have all been friends together? What was with the weird sitcom-style prison that he kept the others in?
Gameplay wise, there’s not much to write home about when it comes to Saints Row. There’s no real breaking of the mould. It’s the same old open-world third-person shoot-em-up. The missions too became relatively one-note - with the Boss even commenting that they wanted something more than just needless violence. I especially detested those side missions where I had to steal trucks of clothes - only to be harangued non-stop by the police - or the food truck missions where the waves of enemies were endless.
The gunplay, too, while sufficient to do its job didn’t have as much diversity as it could. And the levelling up and unlocking of special abilities were a tedious affair.
It didn’t help that when it came to the cars, there was no guide of how to do a barrel roll. I had to look it up online.
Still, if there was one thing Saints Row got right was the best way to make money. It’s not about the small jobs and side hustles that the Boss can sometimes do: Wanted or Pony Express. The real money is all about investments and increasing capital.
It might not be the most riveting part of the game but I kind of liked the idea of playing through for an hour and then checking the cash app to see the revenue that had come pouring in from my criminal empire. Honestly, if Saints Row had become full empire management sim, I might have enjoyed the game more instead of the empty collectathon that I was presented with.
That’s not to say, of course, that I hated Saints Row, but after playing through it while I was on work leave, I walked away from it feeling mildly disappointed? It wasn’t the worst game I’ve ever played but I did feel like it had lost some of its magical spark. I suppose, from a video game equivalent, it would be the delivery of the Santo Ileso discovery tourist boards.
Here’s hoping that if Volition continue with the franchise, and with the soft reboot version of it, they’re able to keep the excitement coming with high-octane shenanigans and a more powerful personal story. I, for one, would prefer something with higher stakes and an actual fear that one of the crew might be lost.
That or have more compelling villains where each one one-ups those that came before instead of being 1) killed by the actual villain during a main mission as a somewhat anecdote and 2) are a faceless collective. The only one I kind of enjoyed taking down was Atticus Marshall but he was more of a jerk rather than a villain. The Collective, Sergei and the Nahualli never quite reached the heights they could have because they were so poorly fleshed out.
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i know it’s like years old at this point but i love that one collab mumbo and grian did with tommyinnit bc it’s like the single most concentrated example i’ve seen of mumbo’s Chaos Nullification Powers
you get to see a bit of it on hermitcraft, mostly via his interactions with grian, but until seeing that collab it didn’t really hit me just how completely mumbo can no-sell other people’s attempts to control a situation. tommyinnit is possibly the single shoutiest, most chaotic minecraft youtuber out there, and in most videos i’ve seen he pretty much overwhelms everyone else and sets the tone for interactions because of this. but mumbo just. doesn’t let him. no matter how much tommy escalates in intensity, mumbo reacts with *exactly* the same energy he always does. grian largely comes across in the whole video as annoyed and reluctant to engage with the whole thing, but mumbo’s not even affected. he just rolls with anything he finds funny and basically ignores anything he disapproves of, only seeming more and more unflappable the harder anyone tries to get a rise out of him.
AND imo, this is the key to my favorite interpretation of him as a character
see, when the people around him are being more reasonable/calm, i think mumbo often comes across as anxious and a bit easily overwhelmed. the thing is, his nervous wet cat vibes do not scale. he has one setting. his responses to the last life ‘ah-ha!’ jokes and to hermitcraft 8 starting to crumble to pieces under a falling moon are almost identical.
mumbo jumbo is inexorably and eternally Just Some Guy, but that gets stranger and stranger the weirder his surroundings become. the giggly incredulousness that makes him an easy target for goofy puns looks Very different when it’s also his reaction to the impending end of the world.
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@megatraven
MEG!! I HAD! A DREAM!! ABOUT ALEX!!
Sadly, it wasn’t happy or sweet😭. It was really sad actually and idk why.
I don’t remember any visuals but I just remember a feeling and the general stuff in the dream.
Okay, so for some reason Alex was feeling some heavy anxiety about Hades?? Not wanting to be family or something?? Like sudden anxiety that Hades didn’t care about them or something along those lines. Like it was really weird but that’s how dreams are. But then it gets weirder.
Apparently, Alex then was like “without Hera’s death, I wouldn’t exist.” Like?? HUH?? She was just suddenly mentioned somehow-
And THEN! MC IS MENTIONED!! The dream felt like Alex couldn’t live without her and wouldn’t have a reason to without her. It’s like that line of Alex saying, “If you died, what reason would I…” from season 1 (not exact quote but you know what I’m talking about). And then it somehow involved Aphrodite all of a sudden.
It was implied that MC HAD died and Aphrodite was comforting Alex. Like idk how I don’t remember visuals, but I kinda remember what was said and what happened.
Bro, my dreams don’t make sense and this is the first lovestruck dream in awhile. This one was dark and I woke up and thought, “I should write it down and tell Meg later,” but I was too tired and now I’ve forgotten parts but I at least remember these lol.
So that was my dream (I guess nightmare actually) and I hope you’re doing well, Meg🥺💙💙💙. I’ve been terrible at talking and keeping in touch, but I hope you’re doing good and loving Alex like always! Because apparently my dreams like to make them sad sometimes-
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